18 FOUNDATION AND OBJECTS 



prematurely to deplore, the names of Davy,Wollaston, 

 and Young ? And there are men still remaining 

 among us, individuals whom I must not mention, 

 present in this meeting, and absent from this meeting, 

 whose names are no less consecrated to immortality 

 than theirs. 



' But it is not by counting the great luminaries 

 who may chance to shine in this year or that in 

 a decade of years, or a generation of men that 

 we are to inform ourselves of the state of national 

 science. Let us look rather to the numbers engaged, 

 effectually, though less conspicuously, in adding by 

 degrees to our knowledge of nature ; let us look to 

 the increase of scientific transactions and journals ; 

 let us look, gentlemen, at the list produced this day 

 of Philosophical Societies which have grown up in 

 all parts of the kingdom. The multiplication of 

 these new and numerous institutions indicates a 

 wide extension of scientific pursuits. The funds so 

 liberally contributed to their support bear evidence 

 of an enlarged disposition in the public to promote 

 such pursuits. 



' It is on this very ground I rest the necessity 

 and the practicability of establishing in science a 

 new and impulsive directive force, that there are new 

 and more abundant materials to be directed and 

 impelled. . . . 



'I am not aware, gentlemen, that in executing 

 such a plan we should intrude upon the province of 

 any other institution. There is no society at present 

 existing among us which undertakes to lend any 

 guidance to the individual efforts of its members, 

 and there is none, perhaps, which can undertake it. 

 Consider the differences, gentlemen, between the 

 limited circle of any of our scientific councils, or even 



